Free Last Chance at Love by Gwynne Forster Page A

dentist’s office. Child, if he’s the one—”
    “I’d better start spending my weekends up there instead of down here in Washington, D.C., where you see ten women for every man, and most of those are ineligible.”
    A lecture was coming, and she’d brought it on herself with her thoughtless comment. Her aunt did not disappoint her.
    “The older you get, the fewer men there are, Allison, and the city you’re in hasn’t got a thing to do with it. When you’re twenty, everybody your age is single; when you’re forty, you’re already sifting through has-beens and never-would-have-beens. At age fifty, you’re dreaming. So you watch out.”
    After hanging up, Allison phoned Connie. “I’m bored. Want to go to Blues Alley?”
    “Did I ever say no? Where’s tall, tan, and terrific tonight?”
    “No idea. Meet you there ten minutes to eight.”
    * * *
    “Would you believe this?” Connie asked her when the band assembled on the stage. “No Buddy Dee and no Mac.”
    The manager went to the microphone and addressed the patrons. “We have a real treat for you tonight, folks. Mark Reddaway will show you what the blues are all about, but don’t let the man fool you. Monday morning he’ll be in his office on Connecticut Avenue designing skyscrapers.” He put his hands over his head and applauded. “Give it up for Mark, everybody.”
    “They must be kidding,” Connie said when the man, elegant in a gray pin-striped suit and with a twelve-string guitar strapped across his shoulders, began picking and singing “It Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.”
    “Close your mouth, girl,” Allison said as Connie looked as if she’d been stung by a bee. Allison didn’t remember having seen the polished and self-assured woman so attentive to anything other than her work as an engineer. Tall, svelte, and fashion-conscious, Connie was a woman at the top of her field professionally and with a tight grip on the remainder of her world. Allison couldn’t believe the lost look in Connie’s eyes. At least she wasn’t the only woman a man had poleaxed the minute she saw him.
    For the remainder of Mark’s performance, Connie, always talkative and with a ready quip, didn’t say one word. The set ended, and Allison watched the man bowing to the prolonged applause and whistles, obviously pleased.
    “What...” Connie’s chair was vacant, and when Allison looked toward the stage, she saw Connie standing there shaking hands with Mark Reddaway.
    “What was that about?” she asked her friend when Connie returned to the table for the beginning of the second set.
    “Uh...tell you later. Do you mind leaving alone? I...uh... I want a chance to get to know Mark. Thanks, friend.”
    “Sure. Go for it.” In the five years that she and Connie had been friends, the woman dated frequently, but hadn’t become attached to anyone. “You think this has possibilities?” she asked Connie.
    Connie lowered her gaze in an uncustomary show of diffidence. “I know it has. It... Lord, I hope so.”
    At home later, Allison pondered her feelings for Jake and her increasing insecurity in regard to them. She had detected a mystery about the man, a puzzling demeanor that should warn her to steer clear of him, and it did. But then, he would show her how gracious, kind, and considerate he could be, or that wink of his would captivate her, and she’d forget her misgivings.
    * * *
    Jake completed the plan, faxed it to his chief, and was back in New York Sunday night. He imagined that Allison spent the weekend in Washington and quickly verified it. As he was about to dial her phone number, he received a call from the chief. “This is great. Congratulations on an excellent job. I’d like you here Wednesday morning for at least half a day, so we can discuss it with the secretary.” In his mind’s eye, he could see the chief throw up his hands, palms out, when he said, “Just half a day is all I’m asking.”
    He figured that, as far as Allison was